Is it right to brainwash children?

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Disagreement! By dividing people among many beliefs you force people to learn to live with other views, and you ensure that no one has enough men to form an army and go crusading.

"Don't eat the red berries, they are poisonous."

Child A listens to what his father says, but Child B eat the berries and dies.

Result? Children are more likely to believe what their parents tell them.

Organized religion targeting children makes me so frustrated. A human is the weakest when they are small; they have very moldable minds.

Leave the children alone!

The problem is is that its the only way religious memes have of surviving, and they're not going to give it up. It's a natural selection thing. Suppose we have two religions, religion A and religion B. Religion A says brainwash your kids into the religion as young as possible, whereas religion B says wait until your kids are old enough to think for themselves before teaching them about the religion. It's pretty obvious what will happen. With religion A, the religion is quite successfully transmitted to the next generation; the ridiculousness of the religion's claims is easily overcome by tendency of children to accept what they're told uncritically. With religion B however, the children are first exposed to it only when they have some tendency to think for themselves, and when presented with it they simply laugh at the absurdity of it all. As a result, religion B will quickly die out.

This will serve to ensure that religions will always require kids to be brainwashed into accepting its tenets; if a new form of an existing religion emerges which does not encourage brainwashing, the strain will become extinct very quickly, probably within a generation, leaving only those strains which do encourage it.

Ok, what if atheists did the same thing? Put all of their efforts into teaching kids that all gods and supernatural beings didn't exist. Even created songs for them to play? Would you have the same reaction that these people are misusing their authority? What about teaching kids about the political situation from a particular political view? Like, when explaining how the world worked, picked a very conservative view of the world and explained it all that way to a mind that wouldn't be able to see the ideology?

People teach their children all sorts of things from an openly biased perspective already, so religion isn't the only thing. Nor do religions necessarily imagine their perspective as biased, sometimes to these folks, the other view is seen as absolute nonsense, not worth believing or teaching. So, really, I don't think that these folks are doing what other parents wouldn't do if they held those same beliefs.

You know, my parents didn't tell me there were no gods, they let me have an open mind. They said I was free to believe whatever I wanted to when I grew up. Same with political systems, they have invited me to discuss things openly.

Saying "the soviets been teaching them children to be godless" is not a good way to justify your brainwashing.

It is also interesting that some religions also try to banish knowledge that would show aspects of their religion to be false. Muslims for example refuse to learn about aspects of science such as evolution that contradict their religion. Teaching evolution is blasphemy and punishable in some countries - and we are not talking about a lash or two. A Muslim once openly said to me that some parts of science should not be taught in schools because they undermine faith! I was so shocked by this statement I couldn't think of a reply! Some people are so brainwashed they prefer to cling to their faith rather than facts! What do you say to such people?

We have thought about it, but not many local organisations exist. This town is very historic, the main road mainly consists of 4 different churches within a few metres of each other. One is modern, two are traditional and the forth is a strange church that not many people attend. I believe that the fourth is a spirtitual church, whatever that is :S The church doesn't have an awful lot of authority to be honest, but they sure take up a lot of space. I walk past 3 churches on my way to school, and thats the shortcut way. :S
I'll suggest the idea though, thanks for the heads up

Well, no, they ignored the issue because to them it didn't matter whether you believed or not. I doubt that the same issue would have emerged if the issue was financial responsibility, or how the transportation system works. Not only that, but Henriksson, do your parents *never* express any political opinions ever? Do they *never* give you information if they think you are saying something incorrect either logically or factually? Not even giving a book to express a corrective move towards your opinion? Not only that, but do you deny that your environment has a factor in your expressed opinion and that if your parents had picked a different environment, you would have been pushed towards different conclusions? It seems to me that these 3 things likely warrant an affirmative answer for at least part of them, thus removing the idea of neutrality.

I am not saying anything about "the soviets". Nor do I brainwash children, I don't have them, and I do not work with them either. However, the argument I am making is against the notion that a neutral system exists. I don't think a neutral system *can* exist, I don't even think your example is one of a neutral system. To me, the issue is simple: any system of educating a child will have a structure, and this structure will favor subject X while disfavoring subjects Y or Z or K in relationship to X. The favoring of X over other subjects is based upon parental influences, societal influences, economics influences, etc. There is no neutral relationship of favoring X to Y to Z, as entymology is not a subject equal to human psychology, and astrology is not equal to astronomy in terms of attention given, but entymology and astrology both carry information that is disproportionate to the attention given, just information widely judged as irrelevant.

Um... any child-rearing includes some "brainwashing." It's called "culture" and it's the basis of all human advancement from the discovery of controlled fire onwards. AG is correct, a neutral system does not exist and anyone who claims one does is just being stupid.

I take it that you mean you were displeased with what the man did.

ruveyn

I could also mention the story of "Camp Jesus" here? <.< It's almost the same, xcept it's a "summer" camp. I'll admit it looked like some left over Quakers (you could see them chanting prayers repeatedly while almost shaking), oh and those are kids i'm talking about as well ^^ .

Parents teach their kids what they believe to be true. The state teaches kids what the state finds useful to the state. Nobody is unprejudiced on that basis. Some kids learn to think for themselves and some don't. Unfortunately, a good many don't.